Medical Device Tracking

For many years organizations have affixed labels to their valuable assets such as computers, tools, and medical devices. Metal tags with a stamped serial number or tags with barcodes on them are commonplace.

When the time comes to take inventory of what assets are still in the field the person charged with recording them must visually read the tag or be able to point and shoot a hand held scanner at the barcode to record the asset number.

Bar coding technology provides the capability of tagging assets with unique identifiers without requiring asset locators to manually record identifiers in the field.

RFID technology provides the capability of tagging assets without requiring the asset number to be physically visible or in the line of sight. Tags may sometimes be embedded into the asset (depending upon its composition) such that the tag is not visible or readily accessible. In other situations where the tag may be affixed to an asset the tag does not require visible markings or barcodes in order to uniquely identify the asset.

RFID tags may interrogated using hand held RFID readers by passing the reader in near proximity to tag placement. Multiple tags may be read at once. Fixed readers may also be placed strategically throughout the organization to record movement assets between buildings or special areas.

Bar codes and RFID tags may be scanned using hand held computers and asset identifiers can be recorded and later uploaded into an asset management system for audit trail and reconciliation purposes.